Words by

Bianca O'Neill

If there is one thing that fashion peeps understand it’s, ahem, “borrowing” ideas from others – especially ideas that are making bucketloads of cashola. So, it comes as no surprise that our Instagram / Facebook overlords have taken a fairly large swipe at Snapchat by pretty much just copying the whole thing and plonking it at the top of our Instafeeds.

There are so many reasons why this is a terrible idea, and not in the least because most fashion bloggers on Snapchat are incredibly boring anyway. Yes, now there is another platform where they can upload slow pans of the outfits they’re about to post several images of anyway!

I mean, I appreciate that Insta is trying to give us everything in one spot, like some kind of McDonald’s hybrid where you can also get pizza and waffles. But secretly, they’ve really done this because they know how lazy we are. Snapchat stands no chance – the ADD generation can barely watch an entire episode of Orange Is The New Black without checking their phones at least 34 times.

And here’s where the worrying bit comes in: remember when you used to post on a 1,000 strong page on Facebook, and reach 1,000 bloody people? Remember the good old days when you didn’t get ads for dinosaur jumpers and high quality goon among your feed? (My god, that Facebook marketing filter is on point.)

Well, the sooner Instagram kills Snapchat, the sooner we’re all slaves to the Facebook machine. You think your non-sequential Instafeed is annoying? Followed by ads for the new McDonald’s range of pizza waffles? Well, soon you’ll be inundated with baby videos, low-light food imagery, and talk-to-camera IRL inspo quotes. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Instagram used to be the one, neat, pretty, not-real-at-all place where you could follow a blogger and daydream about when you’d both go travelling in Europe together, laughing lightly over a Crêpe Suzette. She’d be the gorgeous, stylish one that can’t possibly take a bad photo, but always compliments you. You’d be the one who’d fall into a canal in Venice trying to get the best leg angle, and spend the rest of the trip getting the stink out of your hair. BUT YOU’D BE SO HAPPY TOGETHER.

Now? That’s never going to happen. One click on her Instagram Story, where she’s talking about the potential merits of Donald Trump’s immigration policy in a turtleneck with bad lighting, and you’re done.

In the words of at least 15 friends over the last week: Until they bring the dog filter to Instagram Stories, we’re just not convinced. Because if there’s one reason why Instagram exists, it’s to make us all look 1000% better than IRL.

Follow Bianca’s begrudgingly frequent Instagram Stories filled with daily frowny selfies and videos of her dogs, head to @_thesecondrow.